AV News 175 - February 2009
The Great Northern Festival 2008
Howard Bagshaw LRPS
AV event organisers seem to be better at long-range weather forecasting than
the Met Office. I'd been to the RPS International at Cirencester and the weather
had been bright and sunny and so it was again for the 14th Great Northern
Festival; bright and crisp all weekend. Not, of course, what you really need for
such an event, but useful to know if you're planning a holiday.
The Great Northern, for those who haven't been, is an annual weekend long
event, starting on the Friday evening and running through Saturday and Sunday,
this year from 5th to 7th December. Its delight is the variety of activities,
illuminating talks, fierce competition and informed debate, which make the
weekend so interesting and stimulating.
On Friday night we had the opportunity to listen to members of Wigan 10 Foto
group talk about their award winning photography. What a way to start; the hall
was full at Wilmslow, 135 people I'm reliably informed. If you are at all involved
with single image photography, you are likely to have heard of this group of 14
photographers. Yes 14, not 10 as you might have thought; the 10 refers,
perhaps, to the fact that the group started in October.
Ed Roper kicked off by talking through
the formation of the group and their
aims. They meet at each other's houses
mainly to appraise each other's work, but
they never have internal competitions.
Instead they devote themselves to
producing group entries for local,
national and international competitions.
In this they have been very successful
both
nationally,
winning
PAGB
Gwen Charnock, Ed Roper & Dave Butler competitions and internationally, in 2006
Of Wigan 10 Foto
winning the FIAP World Cup. Dave
Butler then went on to show pictures from each of the members. While each
member tends to have a specialisation, maybe nature or sport, each is
encouraged to try different aspects of the hobby. Nature seemed to be
particularly strong but traditional landscape didn't make much of an appearance.
Finally Gwen Charnock showed the images, which won Wigan 10 the top award
in the first FIAP Club's World Cup. They were a stunning set, which comfortably
beat all the opposition from India, Italy, France, and all the rest of the world. We
were then given a showing of the images which Wigan 10 are entering for the
3rd FIAP World Cup, a very creditable set, but I didn't think up to those of two
years ago; but only time and the FIAP judges will tell. By the time you read this,
the result will have been announced so have a look on www.fiap.net
Saturday arrived, yes, bright and clear, but the hall at Wilmslow Guild had
been well blacked out. Today was to be competition day and the hall was again
full with well over a hundred people.
There were 33 entries split across four sessions. Of these, seven were eligible
for the restricted category (entrants who hadn't won anything significant before
and didn't have lots of letters behind their name).
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